


Pride

by FourteenMinutes



Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Literally just having some fun with characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-20
Updated: 2016-06-20
Packaged: 2018-07-16 05:25:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7254187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FourteenMinutes/pseuds/FourteenMinutes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vidanya Cousland, in an attempt to hide her magical abilities from a Seeker as a child, strikes a deal with an unconventional Pride Demon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pride

Seven Seekers stood in a circle in the Chantry at Castle Cousland, illuminated in a halo of light that coloured their heavy steel armour with the glorious flames of Andraste's ascension. At least half of them were Orlesian, one a Nevarran, another a Marcher, and a single Ferelden.

Vidanya decided that she liked her kinswoman the least; the hard eyed, sallow tongued woman who seemed so keen to prove herself was twofold more terrifying than the old Nevarran with only one and a half hands. As he spoke, the stubs of the two smallest fingers of his left hand twitched, and she found herself struggling to concentrate on his words rather than the small dance the charred stumps performed with every gesticulation.

Mabari, her father called them, the Mabari of the Chantry. Vidanya thought they were rather more like magpies, drawn to dangerous maleficar like magpies to mirror shards.

They had been discussing the renegade blood mage in Amaranthine for most of the morning, exchanging tales of a woman who could be constrained by neither man nor magic. She had been paying attention then, enraptured by the image of someone tearing through the Fereldan countryside leaving a trail of foolhardy Templars in her wake. Then the topic had moved to her father, and Vidanya had quite abruptly lost all of her concentration.

For the previous half hour, she had been half-standing by, half leaning-on, the pew nearest to the altar, feigning the sort of polite interest her mother reserved almost exclusively for diplomats from Orlais - usually before she told them where they could take their feigned platitudes.

It had been Eleanor's idea to send her, when Fergus had somehow managed to magically un-involve himself from the proceedings, and as boredom led her fingers to pick idly at the lace detailing of her dress she half-wondered if she could hand him over to the Seekers as a maleficar, a blood-mage with the uncanny ability to get himself out of doing any work whatsoever.

Unlike Fergus, she had inherited her father's blonde hair and square jaw along with her mother's brilliant green eyes and sharp tongue. Unlike Fergus, she hadn't yet learnt when to pick her fights.

"...Ah yes, may the Couslands never change," chuckled the Nevarran. "Rebellion is in their blood, I'm surprised that Cailan has managed to hold onto them for this long."

"Maric was an inspirational leader for many of the local Bannorns, I doubt the Couslands are any different," responded the Fereldan, her eyes wandering to the Orlesian Seeker standing at the edge of their semi-circle, pre-empting the wide grin that split his face and the words that came out of his mouth.

"Dog lords, they are all the same."

"Watch your tongue Chernoff, you're in dog territory now. You might at least show some respect to the man whose house you're standing in.”

Beneath her skin, she could feel the familiar boil of her temper beginning to rise, a flush of heat growing fast at her fingertips as if they might at any moment burst into flame. The Orlesian had no right, no right at all to –

Inwardly, she tried to silence the hum that started in her head and ended in her skin, the familiar sensation of losing control. Then he opened his mouth again, and she struggled to stop her self-control from evaporating completely.

"A house he would not have if his grandfather had not kissed the boots of Orlesian chevaliers -"

"My great grandfather," she snarled in some attempt to silence the rage quivering in her chest, "would have sooner died than kissed any part of a Chevalier."

It didn't matter that the man was taller than her, broader than her, older than her, coated from head to toe in heavy armour with a sword and shield by his side and ten years of Seeker training beneath his belt - all she saw was the smirk of condescension he wore like a perfume, as if her outrage was nothing more than amusing to him. The very sight of it made her blood boil and the hum in her head rise to the pitch of a screech.

But she would not give them the satisfaction, could not give them the satisfaction, of watching her lose control, and with every ounce of energy she could muster she forced herself to straighten her spine and hold her fluttering fingers still in tightly balled fists at her sides.

"Of course," he intoned, "I never meant to offend."

The insincerity of his supposed apology only made her indignation burn brighter, until her palms felt as though they were on fire. One more smirk, that was all it would take, one more idle comment and she swore she’d set the man alight.

So she gave herself the final word on the matter, no matter how childish and humiliating it was.

"Why don’t you tell that to the Teyrn of Highever?"

She could hear them laughing as she stormed out, and she felt embarrassment rise in her throat, vying with rage for control of her emotions. It cleared her head, at least, drowned out the hum in a wash of shame and a desire to charge back into the Chantry and prove the Seekers wrong. Then she felt her eyes begin to water, and her heart sunk.

Biting down on her lip, she forced herself to stifle the hot tears she could feel at the corners of her eyes, her heart hammering uncomfortably hard in her chest. Crying was unladylike, it would give her wrinkles, it would mark her as weak - like she had already humiliated herself in front of the Seekers of Truth.

Hurtling through the Castle corridors scattering servants and soldiers alike in her path, she threw herself into her father's office and said the first words that came to her teeth torn lips.

"Make Fergus do it next time!"

Under normal circumstances, she would have regretted that first choice of words to her father, but the Seekers' reactions had sunk beneath her skin too deep for her to ignore any longer.

"Anya..."

"No! He can get insulted at next time, he can try and hold his tongue, he can -"

"Vidanya Cousland."

At the use of her full name, she stopped mid-tirade. Slowly, the tears she had struggled so hard to control burnt trails down her cheeks as she stood there waiting for Bryce's verdict. Her state of breathlessness was only one part anger, but six parts trepidation.

Age had worn keenly on Bryce, and she could no longer remember if her father had been grey and tired for her entire life or only for most of it. But his rage did not require volume, his fury was not suited to shouting or ranting or any form of aggression. His anger was a quiet, creeping variation of disappointment, and one she tried desperately hard to avoid.

Pulling herself together, she reached up and rubbed at her face, trying to crush the tears back into her eyes before they betrayed her any more. Cautiously, she took five deep breaths and steadied her nerves. When she felt certain she wasn't going to burst into uncontrollable sobbing, she spoke.

"I'm sorry father. The Seekers wish to speak with you in the Chantry."

"Thank you." A moment passed, then another, weighted heavier with silence than with any words. "Did they give you any trouble?"

"They...” Her teeth came down hard on her lip to silence the complaint. “No. I was just being silly."

"What did they say to upset you?"

"This one, this Orlesian, he called us dog lords... He insulted the family name."

"Oh Anya." He gave an exasperated sigh. "Come here."

She took a handful of cautious steps towards the Teyrn, and he scooped her up tightly in his arms, drawing her into a hug. Sometimes, she struggled to tell whether she relaxed of her own volition, or whether she relaxed because she was home, caught up in the warmth and the smell of wood smoke and dog fur. In her chest, the humming subsided to a quiet, tender note, and she allowed herself to drop her guard, curling up against him.

For a few minutes they remained there, his clumsy, battle-calloused fingers running through her hair as he quietly admonished her.

"You can't pick up a sword against every Orlesian who tries to rile you, anyone who might challenge the family name, even if you might want to."

"Even if they're wrong?"

"Especially if they're wrong. We're different to Orlesians for a reason, Anya. What have your mother and I always told you?"

Taking a deep breath, she repeated the mantra with the precision of a well-rehearsed quip. "Better a dog-lord than an Orlesian, for a dog lord must earn the respect of the pack, but an Orlesian can't even command his own... uh, attack."

"Well, there is your reason why we do what we must. The Couslands have our history, but never once have we lost the respect of our people. We must place ourselves above such Orlesian things, or people will believe that our honour is something that can be lost - do you understand?"

"Yes father."

"Anya..."

"Yes, yes I understand. I'm sorry. It won't happen again, I promise."

"And I'll hold you to that. Come now, I'll see if these Seekers have anything to say against the Couslands to the Teyrn of Highever. As for you, I believe your mother wanted you to keep Gilmore company while Fergus is busy."

She cocked her head to one side, keeping a tight rein on her eyebrows before her stare became more cynical than it already was. 

"Fergus is busy?"

"Your brother will be the next Teyrn of Highever. He has to start learning somewhere."

At that, she kept her mouth shut. Whatever Fergus was doing, she strongly doubted that learning to be the next Teyrn could be counted somewhere as part of it.

Following her father out of the office, she kept pace with his long strides as he made his way back to the Chantry. As they passed, servants bowed their heads and dropped their eyes, and she felt a small surge of satisfaction at her position in life. The Orlesian could say what he wanted, but she was still a Cousland, and their blood was equal parts steel and fire in her veins.

Outside the chapel, she said one last goodbye to her father before doubling back, heading in the direction of the library, where Gilmore would have his head buried in some book or other. She had just about managed to reach the kitchen doors when she ran head first into her brother.

Fergus was only three years older than her and half a head taller, but at the age of fourteen and styled to inherit their father's Teyrnir, he managed to hold himself with an over-inflated sense of self-importance. No matter how many times she managed to outwit him, Fergus always had one last trump card to play - she was his little sister, and as his little sister she was duty bound to do anything he didn't want to do.

Her brother's idea of responsibility started and ended at admissions of guilt, quickly followed by protestations of innocence. It was endearing, she supposed, and at least she only wanted to beat him into a pulp three-quarters of the time because of it.

Like on that occasion, when she launched herself at him and knocked the freshly pinched pastry clean out of his hands.

"What part of learning to be a Teyrn is that part of, huh? The part of learning how to avoid people while stealing things?"

"Hey!" He yelped, "I was going to enjoy that! Look, now I've got to go and get another one. Nan is going to lose it..."

Vidanya was in no mood to let him off for simply giving her is best impression of a Mabari pup. 

"Oh, so you managed to wheedle it off of Nan, did you?"

"Not my fault she doesn't like you."

"Yes your fault, Tarle is meant to be our Mabari!"

"Not my fault he doesn't listen to me then, and not my fault that you can't keep him out of Nan's larder."

Rolling her eyes, she retreated with her arms crossed. "No, because nothing is ever your fault Fergus."

"Take it sitting in on the Seekers went badly."

"How did you guess?"

"The fact you're not still trying to kill me, and... have you been crying? Are you alright?"

"No. I'm fine."

"Really? Really really? Because you look like you could use a pastry."

Maybe he really was a blood mage, she decided, given the way the smile rose to her lips in spite of herself, against the anger churning in her gut and the humiliation still fresh in her chest. She was supposed to be angry, but against her better judgement she could feel the sensation of fire fading from her fingertips.

But then again, he was Fergus, blood magic or none, and he was the only one she’d let make her smile so soon after an argument. Shrugging, she sighed, feeling her anger slowly curdle into mild irritation.

"You said it yourself, Nan wouldn't give me one, let alone a second one."

Somehow, that didn’t deter the familiar grin on Fergus’ face.

"Good thing she'll let me get away with three then, isn't it? Stay here and I'll fetch you something to cheer you up."

With a wink, Fergus vanished back into the kitchen to harass the cook again, and she found herself smiling until the weight of his absence and her actions hit her again like a lead pendulum.

Collapsing to the dirt floor of the courtyard, she leant against the outer wall of the castle and closed her eyes. Behind her, the stone wall had been warmed by the gentle heat of the fast approaching Fereldan summer. With her eyes pressed firmly shut against the world and the warm, comforting press of the stones against her back, she could almost imagine that the incident with the Seekers hadn't happened, that she was simply imagining things.

Like when she imagined sparks coming from her fingertips whenever she lost control and got too angry, or her vision beginning to swim every time she panicked. That's all those things were, imaginings. That's all the Seekers had been.

Humming to herself gently to try to force the earlier incident from her mind, her lips traced the outline of the sea shanty they had sung to commemorate her mother and father's first meeting, and she smiled. One day, she hoped, one day, Teyrn or not she would do her family proud, she would see her family name go down in history so boldly it outshone the centuries of uncertainty, the plots and the rebellions and every other salacious fact they ever threw against the Couslands.

Thought in her head, she began to trace the outline of shapes in the air, picturing herself swinging a sword as her mother had done, cutting down those who opposed her. As Eleanor Mac Eanraig had danced on the deck of the Mistral while she cut down the chevaliers and earned her place as the scourge of the Orlesian fleet, she would prove to everyone that she was every bit as beautiful and fierce as her mother before her.

Springing to her feet, she mimicked a sword fight with a hundred of Orlais' finest men, her rapier cutting through them like butter. There was no one around to see her, no one around to judge and chastise and tell her she was too old to be playing make believe as she leapt onto the nearest bench and pointed her hand like a sword at a hay bale propped against the wall.

In her head, she had salt spray clinging to her skin and her throat, her hair was wild and her eyes were wild as she travelled seas that were every bit as untameable as she was. With her hands raised at the bale in front of her, she pictured it as Seeker Chernoff, condescending smirk slowly melting from his smug features.

Then she pictured him on his knees, begging her for forgiveness, apologising for everything he had said about her family. And then she would judge him. Would she forgive him? No. He didn't deserve her forgiveness; he wasn't worthy of any sort of forgiveness she had to give. Instead, she would punish him, make him rue the day he had crossed her, teach him to respect the name of Cousland -

Her restraint faltered, her skin hummed like the taut string of a violin.

And the bale in front of her erupted into flames as her rage peaked, snarling out of her like a tongue of white heat and setting the dry kindling ablaze. Painfully slowly, she felt her stomach turn to iron, then to lead.

Magic. That was all it was and all it could have been - magic.

She’d suspected for a while, for longer than a while, and told herself sternly that she was making things up, that there was no history of magic in her bloodline and she certainly couldn’t be the first. She outright refused to be the first.

But then there was the humming that came every time her emotions carried her a little too far, the constant threat at the back of her mind of losing control. Maybe, she thought, maybe, she hoped, she could suppress it, she could silence it beneath sheer weight of self-control. But the fire at her fingertips refused to be stifled any longer.

Biting her lip, she used a word Fergus had taught her recently, one of which she was fully aware that her parents didn't approve.

Dry from the early summer heat and cloudless sky, the hay bale burned freely. Resentment growing in her chest, she cautiously approached it, not quite ready to accept that the flames engulfing it were real. 

She was standing by it, hands raised in silent reverence, when the Fereldan Seeker entered the courtyard. The woman's voice was low, but her tone could not be mistaken for anything other than apologetic as she came around the corner. Then the Seeker clapped eyes on her and the burning bale, and all protestations were lost on the older woman's lips - any sort of apology she might have offered for her companion's taunt was silenced beneath a cold, professional surprise.

Turning, she watched it dawn on the woman's face like the sun slowly rising over the lake near the outskirts of the Castle grounds. She watched the emotions slowly drain from her in favour of a grim set to her features. She watched her hand involuntarily move towards her sword out of old habit and older training.

And Vidanya panicked.

With a head start of a split second, perhaps only slightly more, she shot off, hurtling away from the Seeker and towards the Castle gates. She had no idea where she was going, why she was running. 

She could only hear the panic in her veins as it was pumped out of her heart, staining her thoughts with confusion. If she was a mage, there could only be two consequences.

She was ready to accept neither.

Rounding the corner, her legs tangled in the hefty material of her skirt and she fell. Tumbling across the floor, she threw her arms outwards, her palms bearing the brunt of the blow. On her hands and knees, red blood began to bead. Too stunned to cry, she hauled herself up and continued to run.

Wherever she was quick the Seeker was quicker, the adrenaline in her veins and the youth of her movements no match for the old woman's years of rigorous physical training. The Seeker quickly saw her off at the gate, and she turned tail and fled in the direction of the Warden's Tower - where all her luck ran out.

The tower itself was a relatively new addition to the Castle, built by one of her ancestors to accommodate Sophia Dryden's Wardens when they had schemed against King Arland, and the white stone of it cast a stark contrast to the heavily aged grey around it. It had been built with an escape route, legend said, a tunnel that led out of the Castle grounds. Fictional or not, it was the promise of a way out of the nightmare, and in front of her the heavy oak door was bolted firmly shut, silencing the muffled hope in her breast.

Turning around, she tried to stare the woman down. She approached slowly, her left hand still on the hilt of her sword even with her right raised in a placating gesture, as if at any moment diplomacy might fail and Vidanya might turn into a raging, demonic abomination, who -

Blood and pain and fear, terrible, potent things, tore their way out of her and ripped into the Fade. Raising her hand to cover her eyes, when she managed to open them again, she was no longer standing outside the Warden's Tower, no longer facing the Seeker.

Instead, she was standing in her father's office, the fire flickering softly in the hearth. 

Scrunching her eyes shut again, she then tore them open, desperately trying to gauge some measure of her surroundings. Was she dreaming then? Or was the whole incident with the Seekers nothing more than a dream?

Shaking her head, she raised her hand and looked at the blood that was still staining the pale skin of her palm. No matter how nightmarish the Seeker had seemed, she was a reality, which could only mean that something had happened.

Balling her hands into fists, she threw open the office door and strode out into the perfect representation of Castle Cousland she had created from her head. In the courtyard, the hay bale burned like an ugly reminder.

It was the only thing not trapped in static, in the Fade, a world without a breath of wind or the slightest hint of life it still burned brightly, the long tongued flames dancing around it in a garish acknowledgement of what she was, of what she could do.

Swallowing, she swore on every name of every ancestor she knew that she would not allow herself to become some mindless mage, dragged to the Circle Tower and forced to spend their life trapped behind the same set of walls.

Once, she had argued with her mother on the subject of marriage, suspicious that she might meet the same fate as her favourite ancestress and be married off to a man who she hardly knew. Eleanor had promised that if she had anything to say about it she would never let a daughter of hers be sold off in such a way, and Vidanya had gone to sleep that night reassured of her own freedom.

She had not been born into servitude or need, she knew neither duty nor poverty. All her life she had considered herself free, and the fire that danced around her fingertips served nothing more than to rudely and crudely cut the illusion short.

Raising her hand, she pressed it against the bale, wincing out of habit as her hand passed through the flames. But the fire did not touch her so much as caress her, licking across her skin with the gentle familiarity of an old Mabari. It knew her, it was part of her - she had created it, brought it into the world to obey her whim, and she had nothing to fear from it.

Holding her breath, she let the thought flow through her and swiftly extinguish the hay bale, reducing the world once more to a silent fatigue. 

And a low, rumbling laugh.

_"Well done."_

Raising her hand like a weapon, she spun around to confront the empty air.

"Where are you? Who are you?"

_"So many questions, and somehow none of them are the right one. I believe what you are looking for is 'what are you?'."_

Swallowing the fear knotting at the top of her throat, she said: "I don't know if I want the answer to that."

_"Then you're wiser by far than the last few fools who tried to summon me."_

She refused to let the creature sense the dread that was creeping through her body, steeling herself against the icy cold touch of terror that wrapped itself around her heart. A demon, she had somehow summoned a demon, and managed single-handedly to prove everything Andraste had ever warned people about mages.

The ice reached her head, and she refused to let it pass.

"I didn't summon anything!"

_"Oh but you did. You reached into the Fade and called out, your magic ringing through it like a cry for help. Did you really think that no one would answer?"_

"So, only you answered?"

_"No, child. I simply beat off the competition."_

Gradually, smoke began to gather in the centre of the courtyard, twisting and coiling around itself as it grew into shape. The voice, smooth and loquacious with the slightest hint of a Nevarran accent, belonged to a Pride Demon.

She recognised it by the childhood fairytales and horror stories alone, the tall, purple, spiny creature with two sets of tall curved horns and eight black eyes that bore into her. Beneath its scrutiny, she felt like her heart might stop. Crushing her fingernails against her palm, she forced the steel and fire in her blood to steady it as she stared the demon down.

It looked away first, laughing as it did so. Somehow, the gentle sound rocked the Fade and caused the air around them to ripple, slowly tearing asunder the carefully constructed illusion she had made for herself.

_"So bold! Well, now you see me."_

"But you still haven't told me who you are."

_"Who? If you must insist, I am Conceit. And you are Vidanya, eldest daughter and second child of the Teyrn and Teryna Cousland."_

"How -"

_"We always watch for the Dreamers, waiting for when one of them joins us physically in the Fade. Sometimes it is during a Harrowing, sometimes... Sometimes they come to us of their own accord."_

"But you're a demon."

_"Well observed and so eloquently put. I think we'll get on just fine."_

"I, no. I can't make a deal with you, you're a demon, you're a monster... you -"

The demon sighed, but did not seem overly deterred. Perhaps he thought he could persuade her, perhaps he already suspected the doubts that were fast growing over old beliefs in her heart.

_"May I remind you that you are the one who asked for help? When you step out of this Fade, you will return to exactly where you were before, facing the Seeker. She will promptly see to it that you are put in the Circle of Magi, chained to rules and conventions and forced to spend the rest of your life despised and reviled by the rest of society. Your deeds will mean nothing to them, your name will mean even less."_

"But if I make a deal with you, you'll turn me into an abomination."

It was her only objection, the only thing that stayed her hand and kept her watching the beast from a wary distance.

Andraste had abandoned her; she and the Chantry and the Circle would see her locked up and bound and kept from being who she wanted to be, who she was. They didn’t know that no one imprisoned a Cousland, not an Orlesian, not the Chantry… and not a demon. 

A quiet fell, and Conceit leant in close, all eight of his eyes resting on hers. Cocking his head, she caught the glimmer of a grin pass behind his gaze.

_"You want to be free, but you don't know what it means to be chained. You fear that they will bind you, that I will bind you... Perhaps this will ease your conscience. Possessing someone is only so amusing, only distracts for so long before some Templar sticks their sword through you and you're right back to square one."_

"You won't possess me?"

She could’ve sworn that the demon was smiling.

_"In a sense. What I'm asking for is a foothold. I keep you alive, and in return I am part of you - not possession, more like cooperation. In return for keeping you out of the clutches of the Circle, all I ask for is that you let me in."_

Vidanya had made up her mind already, but struck with the decision, she felt her thoughts falter. There was no going back, no undoing what was about to be done – she would be an abomination, and if any Seeker or Templar got so much as a whisper of it she would be hunted down until the day she died.

She would be free. Like the blood mage in Amaranthine no man nor mage would be able to constrain her, just Conceit.

Slowly, shakily, she took a deep breath inwards and tried to steady her racing thoughts. She knew from every tale she'd ever been told; every story she'd ever overheard that you won't supposed to make deals with demons. You were supposed to stick them between the eyes and run as fast as you could.

But Conceit - the demon, she quickly corrected herself - spoke in tones like honey and silk, in promises of salvation rather than assurances of damnation. It was immature, pointless, but she couldn't help the words that tumbled from her lips.

"You promise?"

Dipping his head, he gestured for her to rest her palm on his forehead. The skin felt dry and wrinkled and ancient beneath her touch, and as he closed his eyes and leant into it, she felt a rush of confidence.

"Then I'll take that deal."

"A wise and excellent choice. Now, let me see what we're dealing with."

Her eyes shot open and her heart lurched in her chest as she was thrown back to the present, the real world, where her wound hurt and there was a woman standing in front of her who would possibly kill her. With the demon in her head, she swiftly amended that to a definitely. The Seeker would definitely kill her.

_'So kill her first.'_

From the blood on Vidanya's hands the magic tore towards her, catching her off guard and sending her flying backwards. The Seeker recovered rapidly, but Conceit was faster, and with each flick of her wrist magic hurtled from her veins and snarled in the summer air.

Against a fledgling child mage, the old Seeker was more than a match. Against an ancient Pride Demon, she was nothing more than a rag doll to be thrown against the walls of the ramparts at whim. Wherever she raised her shield, Conceit disarmed her, wherever she went to engage, Conceit saw to it she was harassed elsewhere. To him, she was nothing more than a distraction.

In her chest, she felt a flush of heat, a taste of power suffused with a hint of pride as the woman was downed one final time. Conceit’s chuckle broke the illusion, and as blood seeped out to stain the cobblestones, she tried to stifle the enormity of what she’d done. For his part, Conceit was having none of it.

_'I think we make a good team, don't you?'_


End file.
